Breadcrumbs allow you to add a visual reminder of where you are in a presentation. Adding them is useful to help you know where you are within a presentation and allows your end users to navigate the document with one click.

NB Adding and customizing Breadcrumbs is available to all UpSlide users. We've added the instructions for administrators to reflect the relative complexity it involves. If you're a user trying to disable it from your presentation, you can use the Outline pane.

Overview

You will have to create some elements in the Slide Master and tag them, so UpSlide recognizes them as shapes to use for Breadcrumbs. These shapes will be used to set the positioning, formatting and sizing. This means you can customize the Breadcrumbs on a presentation-by-presentation basis to create more or less complex versions in different formats.

Set your Slide Master

Create the Breadcrumbs' layout

1. Open an UpSlide compatible template. 
2. Go to View > Slide Master to open your template's Slide Master.
3. Find the slide UpSlide Table of Content Master, and create a new layout at the very end.
4. Rename the layout to "UpSlide Breadcrumb".

Create the base style and formatting

Within the Breadcrumbs' layout:

1. Create two shapes containing the following text "Non-current" and "Current".
2. Format the shapes according to your template guidelines.
   1. "Non-current" contains the formatting of the non-current section or subsection.
   2. "Current" contains the formatting for the current section or subsection.
      

The distance between the breadcrumbs is determined by the gap between the non-current and current shape (blue arrow in the example). The green arrows show the positioning set by the non-current shape.

First, build your non-current shape on the furthest left you will want the Breadcrumbs to appear. Then, create your current shape to the right.

Rename the shapes

You now need to rename the two shapes in PPT's Selection Pane. This will ensure that UpSlide can identify them.

1. Go to Home > Arrange to open the Selection Pane.
2. Select "Non-current" and rename it Other Sections, then select "Current" to rename it Current Section.

Specify content to be displayed

By default, the Other Section text box will display non-current sections or subsections, and the Current Section will display the current sectio or subsection.

You can edit the content that will be displayed using the Reminders TOC Options interface (see this article to access this interface)

To do so, you need to:

1. Open the TOC interface
2. Go to the reminders ribbon
3. Select the UpSlide Breadcrumbs layout
4. Select the text box you want to edit
5. Enter the text box
6. Insert one of the available tags, such as <%SectionNum%>, <%SectionName%>, …

Please find below an example that displays the Section Number and the Section Name, and only displays a dot if there is a Section Number

<%SECTIONNUM%><%DOTIFSECNUM%><%SPACEIFSECNUM%><%SECTIONNAME%>

Check how your Breadcrumbs look and function

1. Close the Slide Master
2. Insert sections and subsections in your presentation if they aren't already present.
3. Use Refresh in the Table of Contents section of the UpSlide ribbon. There's no need to close PPT.
4. All the breadcrumbs are updated. If you're unhappy with the results, you should go back to the Slide Master to update it.

Stop the Breadcrumbs from appearing on some layouts

The Breadcrumbs will not appear on UpSlide's automated section or subsection dividers. If you have other slides you do not want the Breadcrumbs to appear on, you will have to disable them at layout level.

1. Create a shape in the slide layout within the Slide Master and name it UpSlide Options.
2. Right-click the UpSlide Options in the Selection pane and click Edit Alt Text...
3. Insert the following text: {"NoBreadcrumb": true}
4. We recommend you hide this shape within the Selection Pane.

Exclude subsection names

If you include subsections anywhere in your presentation, the Breadcrumbs will only show subsection titles. For sections which do not include subsections, no Breadcrumbs will appear.

You can change this setting, so only section titles appear in the Breadcrumbs. To do this add Alt Text to the non-current shape in the slide master: { "DisplayMode" : "SectionsOnly" }

Set a maximum width

If you sometimes have very long section names, you may want to add a maximum limit to how wide each reminder appears. You can apply an option within the Slide master to do this by adding Alt Text to the non-current shape in the slide master: {"TrimTitles": "True"}. The max width of the Breadcrumbs will be the width of the non-current shape set in the slide master. If you are using the SectionsOnly code from earlier, the format is:  { "DisplayMode" : "SectionsOnly" , "TrimTitles" : "True" }.

Tips for creating shapes with proper formatting

• Tick Resize shape to fit text only when not using TrimTitles option.
• Include margins.
• Make sure the text is aligned to the left or right. Middle align and Resize shape to fit text usually overlaps and looks ugly.
• Do not assign Wrap text in shape because otherwise, long names will cause the shape to increase in height. Having it unticked causes a horizontal widening which is usually the desired results
  

Depending on the shapes you use, you may want a nice 'start' to the Breadcrumbs in a different shape. You can do this by adding the first shape in your presentation's Slide Master (not the TOC master). Then, resize, format, and give your Breadcrumbs enough margin to flow after it. See below: